


Ignis Fatuus

by Embleer_Frith0323



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crime Drama, Detective Work, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry Dick Grayson, It's Traught if You Squint, Male-Female Friendship, Organized Crime, Poisoning, Protective Bruce Wayne, because i'm evil, buddy fic, secrets and lies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embleer_Frith0323/pseuds/Embleer_Frith0323
Summary: With Will/Roy and Barbara off world on a months-long peacekeeping mission, Dick and Artemis opt to shack up as friends to stave off the boredom and loneliness of being alone in empty digs. Not long after Artemis joins Dick at his apartment, they learn that Tony Zucco is not only alive, but free from prison and a protected informant within the Bludhaven Police Department. A series of incidents following implicates Zucco in sabotage and attempted murder--with Dick as his primary target.
Relationships: Artemis Crock & Dick Grayson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	1. Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AJMcLeod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJMcLeod/gifts).



> What's poppin', y'all!! <3
> 
> So I've been in the mood for a good buddy-buddy fic between Dick and Arty and even MORE in the mood for a good dose of the old hurt/comfort genre. Not to mention torturing my gag reflex with Monsters Inside Me on Animal Planet's got me chock full of weird ideas, all inspired by the series' morbidly fascinating stories. XD *is a freakin' weirdo* XD
> 
> Why do we who love hurt/comfort love the genre so dearly? In discussing it with friends, I really believe we love it for the healing part of it. In some ways, I think we find the nurturing and healing that we don't always find in our real lives within its stories. So... Love it and read it and write it for the HEALING, friends!! :D 
> 
> This is meant to be strictly a friendship story, but if you're a fellow Traught shipper like myself, there's a bit of Traught goodness tucked away within these chapters... if you squint, you just might find it. ;-) 
> 
> Also, I'm really sorry. XD
> 
> Much love and enjoy! Happy reading, dear ones!! <3 ^_^
> 
> Xoxoxoxoxoxo,  
> ~EF <3

**CHAPTER 1**

  
  


Artemis sat on the couch with Brucely and stared at the wall. 

It wasn’t common that she listed on the sofa and paid more attention to the slight brush patterns in the living room paint than to the TV. It was even less common that she listed at all. She normally wasn’t one to sit still, let alone sprawl out and do her best impression of a sloth for protracted periods of time. Yet, there she was. She settled deeper into the cushions, heaving a sigh. Brucely stretched out beside her with a groan. 

The house was silent, uncustomarily so—discomfitingly so. It was pin drop, feather fall, _mouse fart_ silent. Lian was with Jade at their mother’s home in Gotham, something that overjoyed Artemis to no end, but on a selfish level saddened her. With Will off-world for the next four months, Artemis wished that she could have her niece with her to dispel the quiet and fill the empty spaces in the house. 

_Or to just drown out all the noise in my brain,_ she thought to herself. 

“It’s too quiet in here, huh,” she murmured to her dog, rubbing the soft, velvety spot between Brucely’s ears. She buzzed her lips. “Ugh, I’m losing my mind—oh, wait, I already lost it.” 

He lifted his head, licked her cheek as if to acknowledge her attempt at humor, and rested his chin on her chest. She half-smiled, but the expression faded swiftly.

She thought she had made something of a tentative peace with Wally’s loss, or at the least, had learned to coexist with the pain of his disappearance, but times like these made her wonder if she’d made even one step in that particular direction. She was never opposed to being on her own, but three weeks of silence within the walls of the house she shared with Will and Lian (and occasionally Jade) wore on her with their ready opportunities to remind her of Wally. The more reminders, the lonelier and more restive she became. And a night without crime like this one, once desirable, now left her bored, antsy, and lonesome—and crying over Korean dramas, a ding to her pride that she kept close to the vest.

She chewed at her lip, then issued a frustrated noise and lifted her phone from the coffee table. Scrolling through her contacts, wondering who might still be up at this ungodly, noiseless hour of the night to provide virtual company and entertainment, she lit on something. 

Artemis paused a moment as she composed her text to Dick, thinking that maybe her idea would be too much of an imposition on him, his space and routine, and Barbara’s trust. But then again, she reminded herself, he dealt with the same thing she did—in fact, they had commiserated over it only some hours before. The odds that Dick would be keen on having an interim roomie (complete with dog) until Will and Barbara returned from their peace-keeping mission were good. 

She completed the text, and sent the message. 

“Hope you’re up for an extended vacay in Blüdhaven, furface,” she said to Brucely. “If Dick and Barb are both okay with this, anyway.”

Her phone buzzed, and she checked the screen.

_OMG YAS PLEEEEEAAAAASE I AM GOING NUUUUUUTS._

Artemis laughed and sent her reply.

_Sweet. ME TOO. Can I come over like. Now?_

A moment or two later, and another text from Dick came.

_You know my place, it’s like the 7/11, except mine’s open 25/8. :D_

Artemis sat up, and texted before rising altogether to get some things packed. 

_Cool,_ she wrote. _I’ll message Barb and let her know. Give me half an hour, I’m just gonna Zeta on over with Brucely._

 _Yayyyyy :-),_ Dick replied. _I’ll do the same just so she’s in the know from both of us. Be prepared for a LOT of B karate and 80s movies and bad food until Babs and Will get back :D_

She chuckled and sent a final message before throwing her cell into the bag she packed. 

_Next thing Will and Babs know, Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man come to greet them off the ship._

A buzz: _LMAO~_

She smiled and patted her thigh, calling for Brucely. She headed out the door, locking it behind her.

  
  
  



	2. Heavy on the Dis

**CHAPTER 2**

  
  


Dick leaned against the headrest of the cruiser, and let go a stifled, rattling sigh. His plugged nostrils burned, the nose itself raw and swollen up like an apple on his face. Everything he’d encountered that week, and what threatened to actually sideline him was a _cold?_ Really? 

He drew in a thick breath, yanked a tissue from the dispenser in the middle console, and blew his nose. This earned a Look from his partner on the Blüdhaven police force. Gannon sat in the passenger seat, fiddling with the cruiser’s iPad. 

“Should I be in a Hazmat suit?” Gannon asked, chuckling and handing Dick another ream of tissues. 

Dick thanked him and resisted the urge to just stick the entire wad of paper up one nostril. “Probably,” he said, settling for wiping at his tender septum. He erupted into a well-timed fit of coughing. “Oof. I might or might not be Patient Zero harboring the apocalyptic plague at the moment. You’ll at least want to keep your distance from me for a while.”

“You know, you could’ve taken off, man,” Gannon said. 

Dick shook his head. “Nah, I’ll manage. Besides — I’m not about to leave my favorite damsel to face the streets of Bloody Haven alone.”

Gannon fluttered his eyelashes. “Aww, my noble hero! But seriously, dude. You burn the candle at too many ends on the reg. At least take a nap or something later.”

“Don’t worry, I plan on it,” Dick said, closing his eyes. 

“Promise?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Good. I’m going to hold you to that. Is your friend still staying at your place?”

Dick nodded. “Yeah, Arty’s still there for another couple months. Or at least until she can no longer stand rooming with me.”

“Eh, you’re pretty easy, Dickie. Except when you infect everyone around you with death by mucus because God forbid you take five minutes off work.”

Dick dragged in a wet sniffle. “My bad.”

Gannon’s levity eased. “For real, dude. You need to head home for the day and Artemis needs to like, take care of you.”

Dick rested against the window and smiled at his partner. “All this talk, Gan, you’re kinda beating her to it.”

“Well, any excuse to play doctor with my biggest man crush—” Dick laughed out loud, and Gannon continued, “but I’ll leave the caregiving to someone who _won’t_ get slapped with a conflict-of-interest.” 

“You _do_ know she was Wally’s girlfriend, right?” Dick said. 

“The plot thickens!”

Dick snorted. “Anyway. Don’t worry, she’s already all over me to take better care of myself and rest and actively convalesce. Oh! _And_ she’s convinced me to order some elderberry syrup off Amazon if I don’t improve by Friday. Supposedly it’s a good folk remedy for the generally malaised.”

“Good,” Gannon said. “In her hands I feel like you might live to see another day, after all. Now. You going to wreck that feeling and die on the spot or are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” Dick said, and coughed until his eyes watered. “...Mostly. Let’s go ticket some violators of the all-important traffic laws.”

“Thought you'd never ask, Dickie.”

Dick put the cruiser in gear, backed out of the space in the lot behind the station, and headed into Blüdhaven.

  
  


*******

  
  


When Dick returned home that evening, he was fatigued and stuffy as ever. Artemis sat on the sofa in the living room, her laptop opened atop her criss-crossed legs. Brucely leapt from the couch to greet Dick as he kicked his shoes off and loosened his tie. 

“Hey, pal,” Dick said, leaning down to pat the dog’s solid back. Brucely panted in a dog smile, turning Dick’s mouth up into a smile of his own. The apartment felt a great deal less empty and silent with Artemis and Brucely staying there, something that breathed a little more cheer into Dick’s days with Barbara gone. “How’re you liking the Blüd?” 

“Dick.”

Turning his attention from the dog, Dick inclined his head when he saw Artemis’ expression from where she sat on the couch. She set her computer aside. 

“What’s up?” he said, frowning and making his way over to her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost — and before you say anything about that ghost being me, I _promise_ I hydrated today like you told me.”

Artemis’ expression — concerned, tense, worried — didn’t change under his effort at levity. “I think I did see a ghost, Dick. And… You should probably sit down.”

“Oookay,” Dick said, and readily obliged. He coughed into his elbow and undid his uniform tie the rest of the way, gazing at Artemis where she sat on the couch beside him. Something in her expression set his belly churning more than it did already. “...Is everything okay?”

She wormed her lip, her gray eyes lit with an almost regretful gleam, her jaw tight and brows knitted. “I… take it you haven’t seen or heard much of the local news since this morning?”

“Minus what came across my desk and radio at work, not really — it got pretty crazy out there today, I didn’t really have time to keep up with the news. Why, what’s going on?”

His dread mounted when she turned her gaze to the TV, which held a frozen image of a paused newscast. The fears that a loved one had died or been injured, that the off-world peace talks mission that Barb and Will were a part of had gone south, that the world was under attack — all flitted through his brain, one after the other, fish darting from one reef to the next. 

“Just… look,” Artemis said, and hit a button on the remote.

The newscast resumed playback. Vicki Vale was reporting from Gotham in this broadcast, Dick noted, and then his blood went to dry ice as she continued to speak and the banner that ran along the bottom of the screen revealed the reason behind Artemis’ grim demeanor.

“...Tony Zucco, also known as ‘Fats,’ the mafia don indicted for the Flying Grayson murders fifteen years ago this upcoming April, was released from Blackgate Penitentiary in Gotham last week. His release followed a number of efforts on his part and by his attorneys over the years to reexamine his case, with the end goal to see Zucco either allowed a retrial or to have his sentence remanded to include the possibility of parole. The case was taken to the New Jersey State Court, with Zucco’s legal team threatening to take the appeal to the Supreme Court if Zucco’s case wasn’t considered. Eventually, the court determined to commute what was formerly a life sentence for Zucco to time served.”

Dick stared at the television, everything around him whirling and rushing ahead in a dim, sprinting roar, then ceasing all at once. The world plunged itself into a state of utter stillness and silence, not a sound falling on his ears or a sight on his eyes outside of Vicki’s voice and the image of Fats walking with a brisk step to a black sedan. A young brunette woman kept pace at his side, a tall, lanky man in a suit glided along at his other. Dick’s ears warmed and thrummed with the distant, _whomping_ drum of his heart, his blood pulsed hot and tremulous through his veins, and his skin shrank around his muscles and bones. The flush in his face, already warm and high in his illness, burned to painful torches in his cheeks and temples. 

“Bruce — Bruce said that Zucco was dead,” he said, his hoarse voice falling from numb, tingling lips. He turned to face Artemis. At some point that he hadn’t noticed, he had risen from the couch to stand on quaking legs. “He told me he was _dead —_ he said he died of a _heart attack —_ years ago —”

Artemis gazed helplessly at him. Dick looked back at the television, the sight of the monster that, all those years before, had his family brutally and horrifically killed overtaking his field of vision, a vestige of the countless nightmares that long deviled his sleep come to haunt him now in his waking reality. 

“The attorney in charge of handling Zucco’s case shed some insight on his client’s sentence and incarceration earlier this morning,” Vicki was saying, and the shot cut to a playback of the tall man that had accompanied Zucco to the sedan.

“Well, my client was imprisoned due in large part to the testimony of a traumatized child,” he said in response to the interviewer. “Now, I want it to be known that nothing should be held against Dick Grayson — he was just a little boy who had witnessed an _awful_ event and my client’s affiliations at the time would make him seem a likely villain to an impressionable kid. But look, Cat — I don’t even want to worry about Dick Grayson in all this. What I _do_ want, and have wanted, to bring into question is the obvious bias of the jury in my client’s trial, the mishandling of evidence at the crime scene, the unlawful provision of faulty evidence by none other than a vigilante —”

Dick snatched the remote from Artemis and hurled it with all his power at the TV, along with a shouted, colorful expletive. Startled, Brucely skittered off a few steps. The remote itself burst into three pieces and crashed to the wooden floor. The display on the television briefly flickered and distorted, but the interview with Zucco’s attorney continued on in its cruel march of painful, wound-picking words. Dick lowered himself to the couch, and pressed his fingers into his throbbing temples. He moved the heels of his hands to grind into his ears. He couldn’t bear to hear the sound of Zucco’s skeazy, money-sucking lawyer championing his case.

Artemis rose without speaking and shut off the television. She lifted the remote, replaced the button battery, and situated the back panel into place. Sitting back down on the couch beside Dick, she rested a companionable hand on his knee, the touch compassionate and gentle. 

“Dick, I’m so sorry,” she said.

He lowered his hands and covered her fingers with his. Taking a breath, he looked up at the ceiling, fighting to replevy his senses.

“Was Bruce _wrong?”_ Dick asked eventually. “I mean — did he get misinformed or something? He’s the Batman, okay, but he’s still human and _can_ mess up his info now and then, right?” He gestured. “Or is it really that he’s _lied_ to me for all this time?”

Artemis shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Dick sat in silence a moment. The room seemed to be whirling on a spin ride. His back and forehead prickled. Dampness at his lash lines threatened tears, nothing Artemis hadn’t seen from him before, but he feared that if he let the crying start up now, it wouldn’t stop. His stomach turned. 

He lifted his hand from Artemis’ and rose. 

“I,” he announced, “am going to get sick, call Bruce, email Barb, update you, and then start looking into this.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. _You_ are not going to start looking into anything. The rest I’ll permit, but after you’ve talked to Bruce, you’re going to bed,” Artemis told him. “You’re sick, buddy. You need to rest up and face this when you’re tolerably fresh. I’ll look into Zucco tonight.”

“No way, Arty,” Dick protested, then abruptly sneezed. “Ugh. But seriously — I can’t _stand_ sitting around doing nothing while my family’s murderer is not only _alive_ but running around free to arrange more murders and God knows what else. Sleeping is the _last_ thing I need to be doing.”

Artemis crossed her arms. “No, it is certainly not the last thing you need to be doing. It’s the _first_ thing you should be doing, actually. Dickie, the way you’re going, you’re not going to be in any shape to deal with Zucco—you’ll be passed out in a gutter drowning in a puddle of your own snot.”

Dick paused. “Nice visual. But really, Arty, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell I’m going to be able to sleep now, anyway, and I have to start patrol in two hours—” 

“Richard, I catch you suiting up, and I’ll _forcibly_ ensure you get some sleep.”

Dick opened his mouth to return fire, but deflated when he realized that Artemis was _far_ from joking, going by the set in her jaw and spark in her eye. 

“Well,” he sighed. “Can’t say I’m in the mood to take one of your straight rights today…” 

Artemis smirked and rubbed her knuckles.

He was about to speak, then lost his words on a gale of coughs and wheezes. Finally, he fell atop the couch with a _shoomp._

“All right, you win,” he said. “Getting up to puke once I can move again, then I’m gonna call Bruce. And do my best to stay traught and whelmed the whole time.” 

“Good boy,” Artemis said. “And you know Barb would be pleased to hear you say that — because if you pushed it like you were planning on doing, she’d come zooming home with Clark to give you a good spanking.”

He gave a half-laugh. “Now I’m _really_ gonna barf. The pain of you knocking my lights out and Babs whacking my can for me already has my gag reflex acting up.” 

“Need me to hold your hair back or anything?”

He half-smiled, unable to manage much else. “Nah. Pretty sure I got it.”

“Okay,” Artemis said. “...But I’m here, and I’ll come rushing to the rescue if it sounds like you don’t, though. Just a warning.”

He stood, his roiling stomach calming somewhat at his friend’s words and the tone in her well-known, smoky voice. He was still, momentarily overcome by a rush of emotion that rooted him to the wood under his feet. There was a lonesomeness for Barbara, especially given that standard messaging required two hours to travel the connections from where she was stationed and video messaging took about that much time to set up, making calls difficult to arrange and keep. But Artemis was there, nearby and unhesitatingly available, and he was unthinkably grateful to her — facing this alone didn’t bear considering. Her presence lent him a strength he may not have been capable of manufacturing on his own. 

Come to think of it, she had lent him quite a bit of strength over the years, whether either of them realized it hitherto or not. He only prayed he had done the same for her.

“...Arty,” he said, his voice cracking slightly, experiencing an inrush of powerful affection for his friend. “Thank you. For real.”

She smiled at him, the expression so full of kindness and understanding it nearly unspooled him where he stood.

“Any time, Dickie.”

  
  
  



	3. Freddy's Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, y'all!
> 
> No special reason for the early update, I just felt like posting. <3
> 
> Much love and enjoy!
> 
> Xoxoxoxoxoxo,  
> EF

**CHAPTER 3**

Dick received something of a not-surprise the next morning when he started his shift at work.

It was a not-surprise in that it was more of a gut-punch, a shock to Dick’s entire system that threatened to wreck his professional facade. 

When Dick entered his sergeant’s office to hand him a report before beginning the rest of his day, Tony Zucco sat across from Redhorn’s desk beside fellow officer Dudley Soames. Zucco’s back was to the door, he had aged a fair deal, and he was beefier than Dick remembered, but he was undeniably _Zucco._

Tidbits of his conversation with Bruce from the night before popped into his brain, kernels bursting in flashes of pain and anger. 

_I didn’t want to see you_ afraid _anymore, Dick —_

 _I wanted to give you the closure I never had,_ real _closure, the healing you deserve —_

 _He was sentenced to life,_ without _parole, this was something that even_ I _didn’t completely foresee —_

In moments of greater clarity, Dick supposed he could see what Bruce was trying in his sloppy, stunted way to accomplish, and a small, quiet part of him was thankful for the few years of security and relative peace that Bruce’s poorly executed efforts at love and care granted him. But the larger, louder parts were _furious_ over having been lied to — for so long, so brazenly, and over something so magnificently crucial. 

Because _now_ here Dick was, face-to-face with the starring villain in his unending night terrors, the man who had upended his entire existence and robbed him of his loved ones and the only life he’d ever known. 

Not to mention, Dick was underprepared for a showdown with this particular monster. His unlucky body was incubating a nasty virus, his brain had scarcely caught up to the horror of this turn of events, and he knew that when it came to Zucco, he couldn’t be completely trusted to control himself.

Even Barbara’s message to him, which he received early that morning, could barely lasso his emotions or the impulses that came with them. It was a note that cycled through his thoughts, one particular passage standing out to him — 

_I know what you might be thinking, Dick, but I want you to be super, super careful with that monster on the loose. You landed him in jail, and I can’t imagine he wouldn’t want to do something in response to that or isn’t at least planning something. I understand if you want to pursue him and see if he slips up so you can land him back where he belongs. But if you do, PLEASE make sure you’re protecting yourself, being extra cautious, and leaning on others for help. He had a reputation for being one of the most dangerous mobsters in the US, and that was for good reason, something I know I don’t need to explain to you. I’ll do everything I can to help from here the best I can, even if my resources are a little more limited than usual. The second I find something, though, I’ll send it over right away. Be strong, stud. Love you so much so much._

He gripped the envelope in his tightening hand, her words, soothing when he first read them, now doing nothing to quell the rising tide of fury and vengefulness. 

“Thanks, Grayson,” Redhorn said as Dick handed him the manila envelope. 

Dick nodded. Zucco turned to look at him, visibly catching Dick’s last name. Recognition passed over his features as Zucco met Dick’s eyes. Dick returned Zucco’s hard, satisfied gaze on his way out of the office, holding it as he walked past. Dick’s whole body thrummed with a magma hot energy, his blood bubbling fast like acid through his active form until the door shut behind him.

By the time he reached the sanctuary of his desk, he was raining sweat and his limbs rattled. The burn in his lungs and woozy feeling in his head had amplified about a hundredfold, setting spots to dancing in his vision and his temples to throb in time with his racing heart. For all the imperturbable calm he maintained in even the most outlandish of situations, looking straight into the flat, soulless eyes of his family’s murderer was swiftly proving to be his Kryptonite. 

“Hey, man,” said Gannon, approaching his desk. He set a steaming cup from the break room down on the laminate surface. “Here. Instant human. You look like you could use it.”

Dick took a breath. “Thanks.”

“...I’m guessing by the expression on your face and the overall grim vibes you’re giving off that you saw the news last night.”

Dick turned in his swivel chair and pushed his dampening hair off his perspiring forehead. “I did. Can I ask what the hell Zucco is doing in the station? Is he here to _gloat_ or something?”

Gannon’s lips thinned. “Yeah, about that. Meet Soames’ new CI…” He adopted a false grin. “I _love_ working for the BPD.” 

Dick’s heart fell. “He’s going to be a _CI?”_

“Yep, he’s a protected fucking informant now. And for Soames under Redhorn, no less.”

Dick sagged in his chair. “Oh, my God.”

“You said it.”

“All these years I thought he was dead and I’d never have to think about him ever again, not in any _pressing_ capacity, anyway, and now here he is — in my jurisdiction, under my roof, in my city, protected by my own department.” He passed a hand over his face, and coughed into his elbow. “How did this even _happen?”_

Gannon sighed. “Wish I knew, partner. Minus the fact that he didn’t actually bite it of a heart attack, which really only furthers my lack of belief in the concept of karma.”

Dick shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”

Gannon softened. “I’m sorry, Dick. _Nothing_ about this is right.”

With an effort at smiling (which failed), Dick met Gannon’s gaze. “Thanks, Gan.”

“Speaking of mistaken belief. Have you talked to your adoptive dad?”

Dick nodded. 

“How did that go? Did he just get some misinfo somewhere?”

Dick blasted a sigh into the heavy air of the station. “Dude… trust me when I say Brucie Wayne _isn’t_ the doofus playboy the media portrays — he _never_ shares misinformation.” 

Gannon inclined his head. “So… he deliberately _lied_ to you?”

“Well, he had noble intent behind it, but yes, he lied. That’s a decently concise way of putting it.” 

Gannon shook his head. “Noble intentions — they say the road to hell is paved with those.” His frown deepened as he observed Dick wrangling some tissues to blow his raw, leaking nose. “Speaking of none of that. You look like death warmed up. Did you order that elderberry syrup off Amazon yet?”

Before Dick could respond, a shadow fell over his desk.

“You’ve grown.”

A twist started in Dick’s guts, rolling his middle into knots and coils so tight they stifled his breath. Even though it had been over a decade since he’d last heard it, he’d know that voice _anywhere._

He looked up, and there stood Zucco, a falsely pleasant, jovial colossus hovering just beyond Gannon at the edge of Dick’s desk.

Something lifted in Dick — a bit of fight, a little spirit. Whatever it was, it brought with it a vitality that broke through his discomfort and rose to the occasion. 

Because Zucco was right on one count — Dick _had_ grown. 

“A whole foot, if memory serves,” Dick concurred. 

“Looks about right,” said Zucco. “Last I saw you, you were just a kid.”

“Yeah. Not anymore.” Dick appraised Zucco, better appreciating the cragginess in his skin and shocks of white through his hair. “Last I saw you _,_ you didn’t have a foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel — I take it you saw some stuff in the pen.”

Zucco chuckled. “I’m sure you’d like to think that, not that I blame you. But it wasn’t so terrible, all things considered.”

“Shame. Is there something we can help you with, Mr. Zucco?” Gannon interjected. 

“Well, I just wanted to commend Officer Grayson here on his career path,” said Zucco. 

“Did you,” Dick said — a statement, not a question.

“Yes. I’d say it fits you perfectly, my friend,” Zucco said. “You look very sharp in that uniform. Fits you like you were born for this job, I’d say. Come to think of it, you _have_ considered yourself to be pretty morally upright from a very young age — spying, whistleblowing… stretching the truth and miring yourself in delusion when it suited you.”

Dick’s gut boiled. He rose from his chair. 

“Look,” he said, not bothering to attempt calm. Gannon moved to stand beside him. “I’m not sure what’s compelled you to even approach me right now — but you’ve got a pretty massive pair of balls in those _extremely_ unflattering trousers doing so. I’ll state in extremely plain language that you’re lucky I am who I am and we are where we are, because if I were anyone else or we were even two feet out that front door, this conversation would be over and you’d be eating your own teeth. You killed my parents, you killed my aunt and cousin, and you put my uncle in permanent total care — so I don’t care if you made up some story to make it appear you weren’t as involved as ‘what it looked like’ or if you’re Soames’ CI or if you think that coming up to me and acting like you’re my _friend_ all of a sudden might magically make me forget what you did. I _remember_ what you did — I always will. And I’m _not_ that little kid anymore, Zucco — you said it yourself, _I’ve grown._ And you’re in _my_ territory now — so if I hear that you, a felon, have so much as operated a Bingo game or carried an ice cream cone in your back pocket on Sunday, I _will_ find you. And this time, you _won’t_ see the outside of a jail cell for the rest of your wasted-ass life. You’ll croak an old man in prison with only _Bubba_ to keep vigil over you. You get me? My _friend?”_

Zucco’s eyes went impossibly colder. His shoulders broadened under his jacket, the motion so subtle as to be almost imperceptible. Dick did the same, knowing that while his size was unimposing in comparison to say, Bruce or Jason, he wasn’t small or unfit by any stretch. 

“We’ll see, Officer Grayson,” said Zucco. 

“Yeah,” Dick concurred. “We will.”

Zucco smirked, then turned and walked with an opposing, placid calm away from Dick’s desk.

Dick let his breath go with a _whoosh_ and thumped into his seat. 

“Is it just me,” Gannon murmured, “or did that massive douche just threaten you?”

Dick gritted his teeth. “He tried.”

Gannon approached Dick and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Artemis is at your place until her family gets back, right?”

Dick nodded. 

“Good. You really shouldn’t be alone right now with that monster free to walk the streets and make good on any threats. When does Babs get back?”

“Couple weeks, as far as I know,” Dick answered, altering the truth lightly so as not to blow his girlfriend’s cover. “And honestly, that asshole can bring it. Up until I heard that he ‘died,’ I kind of welcomed the opportunity to really finish what was started fifteen years ago — so not gonna lie, Gan, I _hope_ he comes at me.” He fell into a coughing fit, sneezed twice, and thumped his head on his desk. “...At least once I’m done hosting the deadly plague.”

Gannon smiled. “Order that stuff and rest, okay?”

Dick patted Gannon’s hand before his partner removed it. “Thanks, Gan. And I really mean that. Not to have a super-cheesy _Hallmark_ moment or anything, but I’m _so_ glad that alongside Barbara and my brothers, I’ve got people like you and Artemis in my life.” He sighed. “I don’t even want to think about dealing with this on my own.”

“Well, right back at you, partner. Think of it as repayment,” Gannon said with a final pat on Dick’s shoulder. “Don’t forget, you’re always there for everyone in your life, no matter the circumstances — heck, I swear you’d give your kidney to a total stranger if they needed it.”

Dick chuckled and lifted the coffee that Gannon had brought him earlier. “You give me too much credit, pal.”

“Nope.” Gan smiled. “Anyway. You good to keep going on paperwork?”

“Yep,” Dick said, and blew his nose one more time. “Let’s get cracking.”

In spite of the adrenaline rush of his confrontation with Zucco and the harrowing emotions it brought to the fore, Dick found he was able to decompress with relative speed, knowing that Gannon worked beside him and that Artemis was with him at his home — and that alongside them, he had a whole network of friends and family that were all there for him, and had long proven that they always would be.


End file.
